Disadvantages of Audio-Lingual Method

1) Basic method of teaching is repetition, speech is standardized and pupils turn into parrots who can reproduce many things but never create anything new or spontaneous. Pupils became better and better at pattern practice but were unable to use the patterns fluently in natural speech situations.

2) Mechanical drills of early Audio-Visual approach criticized as being not only boring and mindless but also counter-productive, if used beyond initial introduction to new structure.

3) Audio-Visual materials were open to same sort of misuse. Tendency to regard audio-visual materials as a teaching method in themselves, not as a teaching aid. 4) Soon became clear to teachers that audio-visual approach could only assist in presentation of new materials. More subtle classroom skills were needed for pupils to assimilate material and use it creatively. This final vital phase was often omitted by teachers. New technology caught publishers and text-book writers unprepared - very few commercial materials were available in the early stages. Those that did exist stressed oral and aural skills and didn't develop reading and writing skills.

5) New materials necessitated extensive use of equipment with all associated problems of black-out, extension leads, carrying tape-recorders from classroom to classroom. Some schools set up Specialist- Language rooms, but teachers still had to set up projectors and find places on tape. Equipment could break down, projector lamps explode, tapes tangle - not sophisticated equipment of today. Hardware involved extra time, worry and problems, and, for these reasons alone, its use gradually faded away.

6) Weak basis of its theory

7) Not developing language competence, lack of effectiveness, boredom caused by endless pattern drills. 8) Learners having little control over their learning. 9) Teachers domination of the class. 10) Teacher-oriented materials.